HuffPost - CBC, Stop Telling People With Mental Illness They Don't Need Medication

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The Canadian Broadcast Corporation should consider the potential fallout from its June 7th Sunday Edition in which radio host Michael Enright enthusiastically endorsed the perspectives on mental illness of his guest, journalist Robert Whitaker. Both the on-air interview and CBC’s follow-up article can easily persuade people with severe mental illnesses to stop taking anti-psychotic medications.

Perhaps fears of liability led interviewer Michael Enright and Mr Whitaker to acknowledge parenthetically that some people might benefit from medications although this benefit is incomprehensible given the program’s promotion of the idea that all mental illnesses are actually just psychological problems.

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I am not disagreeing with you, however, I’d like to add that many conditions mimic Sz and can be misdiagnosed as Sz, like if someone has a psychosis due to lymes disease. Other conditions can cause a psychosis, and not be the disease Sz. I am really hung up on this because I believe I had a psychosis, but do not have Sz.

For example, I have a lazy eye now, and after many tests, I believe I suffered from a stroke. And, I’m really pissed off that people have focused on the psychosis, and not treated my stroke, nor advised me on how to prevent another one.

But they did happily tag me with Sz, and then go, oh yea, your eye seems to have a problem. ■■■■■■■ bastards, there go ahead and flag me.

Conditions that may resemble schizophrenia include:
Other Psychiatric Disorders. Bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and depression can have psychotic elements that resemble schizophrenia. The same is true for autism spectrum disorder and some communication disorders. Obsessive-compulsive disorder
and body dysmorphic disorder have delusional elements similar to schizophrenia. People with post-traumatic stress disorder can experience flashbacks similar to hallucinations and have hypervigilance that verges on paranoia.
Alcohol and Drug Abuse. Both substance abuse and withdrawal from drugs or alcohol can trigger psychosis.
Medical Illnesses. Other causes of psychotic symptoms include cancer in the central nervous system, infections such as encephalitis and syphilis, thyroid disorders, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, Huntington’s disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke, Wilson’s
disease, and some B vitamin deficiencies.
Medication Reactions. Many medications may induce psychosis as a side effect, and some can trigger delusions and severe confusion. Such medication-induced symptoms are most often observed in elderly patients.

so, if someone diagnosed with Sz, actually determines later that they can attribute the psychosis to another condition, then yes, discontinue the antipsycotics. That is my opinion.

This information herein, I cite ADAM * http://uihealthcare.adam.com/content.aspx?productId=10&pid=10&gid=000047

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Every case is different. Also a person can have SZ then come out of it, depending on the factors involved.
I’ve known quite a few people SZ, and SZA bipolar.
One successfully went of meds and couldn’t hardly function at all on meds…now they drive, work and are married, and it’s been a few years.
Another went off meds successfully though at one time they seemed to need them due to numerous outburts during psychotic episodes.
Yet another went off meds and completely flipped out.
I was diagnosed SZA but last year they talked about changing my DX and dropping the SZA. Some evaluators recommended meds but my regular clinic and their psychiatrist did not. So I don’t take meds and I do fine, no psychotic episodes at all…and I think a lot of mine may have been dealing with traumas and occasional drinking that led to a form of psychosis due to trauma.
When I cut out that stuff everything chilled out.

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I asked one day, and was told that once you’re diagnosed with Sz, then you always have it. Like I still have it now, but I’m in ‘remission’

I worked at a hospital, and now that there’s hospital IT, I could tell they looked at my EHR and ppl would freak or look me up and down, because my EHR said Sz. Mind you I had a stroke first, but that didn’t seem to matter. most stressful environment, and no I wasn’t just paranoid about it.

So, with Sz, the process is that’s like catching the flu, having antibodies for that strain of virus, and then they say you always have the flu. that’s a pile of crap to me. I think it’s a joke process.

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It’s funny how modern society smacks a label on someone then says the label sticks for life. Once an alcoholic- always an alcoholic is another one.
As a teenager and young adult I fit many of the criteria for an alcoholic…I liked to party and I would never stop at one or 2 drinks.
But the rest of my adult life was different. yes i drank on and off but could stop on my own, most of the time would just have 1 to a few drinks but not get drunk. Didn’t need AA or some other program or therapy to stop. i could choose to pick it up or put it down. Even a doctor went over my history and said I was definitely not an alcoholic, just an occasional binge drinker. Yet the AA type people would say i was an alcoholic still?